Southern Italy: Campania

Over the weekend I stayed in Sorrento. It was about a 4 hour bus ride from Rome. I knew I had arrived once the sea came into sight, and the bus was struggling down the windy path of the Amalfi Drive. It was absolutely breathtaking, not only due to its beauty, but I was also unsure of the stability of the bus on the tiny road. The fear brushed off though when I let myself take in the sights. The green mountains were populated with brightly colored houses: pink, green, orange, blue, purple, and the gardens flowing with cantaloupe-sized lemons, oranges, and other fruits and of course flowers. The houses were lined across the mountains from the very top to bundles in the low valleys. After settling in my hotel room for a few minutes, I wanted to explore and perhaps find the closest beach. I walked near the hotel and found the oddest set of stairs that led to a downhill road that I had just learned led to a pier. After arriving at the seaport I got a view of not only the hills of Sorrento from its coast, but across the water was Mount Vesuvius. I sat along the pier, my feet dangling over the boulder rocks and the water gracefully brushing against them. Two hours later, when the sun was setting, a light rain came through. I went back to my hotel. It was on Italia Del Corso, the main shopping street in Sorrento. Here there were designer stores to local shops where they sold hand made woman's leather sandals. I didn't buy them, at 75 euro a pair, I decided against it. But I do regret it now. They carved the leather in the store, so you could basically sit and watch them make your sandals, it was really cool. I also ran into a few Limoncello liquor stores. Here they sold a variety of sizes of limoncello. It's an Italian drink used as a digestive. It's basically lemon rinds mixed with alcohol, water and sugar. Not my favorite, but the Italians love it and it's produced primarily along the Amalfi coast so I had to give it a go. They also found at least 15 other different ways to incorporate lemon into other foods like jams, chocolates, cookies, and cakes. I was not a stranger to the sample tray. I ended that night with a homemade bowl of ravioli from a nearby restaurant. The seafood in Sorrento is known to be spectacular. Unfortunately, I can't verify that because I don't like seafood. A lot of the other students said it was the best they've had though.

The next day, I took a 20 minute ferry ride to the Isle of Capri. This place is probably the closest thing to paradise I've ever been. As soon as the ferry pulled in, well, I'll just let the pictures speak for themselves. After lying on the rocky beach for a few hours, I went on to take a tour of the Blue Grotto. I took a small boat with about 10 other people, and after about 10 minutes we arrived at the entrance of the cave. We were then transferred to a smaller row boat. Upon entering the cave, we had to lie down to duck our heads to prevent hitting them from the ceiling of the cave, it was high tide. The glowing neon blue water lit up the cave from underneath. If you could imagine a pool of Gatorade glowing in the dark, you can get an idea of what it was like. Except, this was all natural and one of the coolest things I've seen!

The next day I went to Pompeii and took a guided tour of the city that was once covered in ash from the explosions of Mount Vesuvius. I saw a lot of houses, and market streets, and the tour guide even made an effort to walk us over to the red light district. You know what kind of shady stuff goes on there… And of course I saw body casts of two victims of the eruption. It was a little disturbing. They were both literally in mid action, curled up with their hands trying to protect them selves. As you can see….

Well, this was my last trip in Italy. It really was one of the best. I saw things that I never thought I’d see. I loved every second of it!

The first picture is a body cast in Pompeii, sorry its blurry, there were a lot of tourists shoving and whatnot. The second is the Amalfi Coast taken from the Amalfi Drive, you can see the windyness of it on the left, and the steep cliff its on. The third picture is inside of the Blue Grotto! It was also hard to get a non blurry picture because I was on a row boat. You can see the opening of the cave on the right. The next picture is of Capri, that I took when just arriving from the ferry. The next is of Sorrento during sunset, taken from a parking lot actually. Next is obviously all the limoncello. Mind you, that was only 1 shelf. And lastly, the pier in Sorrento with Mt. Vesuvius in the background. :)